The Love That Strengthens Us
by Trajectory of Simplicity
Summary: All they have is each other, but that's all they really need. pre-Awakening.


A/N: Emmeryn becomes Exalt shortly before she turns ten, Chrom is six years younger than her and some concept art I found on Fire Emblem's wikia says that Lissa is four years younger than Chrom. Therefore, the ages of these guys will be starting at, roughly:

Emmeryn: around 10 years

Chrom: around 4 years

Lissa: newly born

The Love That Strengthens Us

Chrom is young, but he already knows that Father is a mean man. He stomps around in billowing robes and glittering jewels and he yells and yells and yells in people's faces until they might cry, and sometimes they do. Chrom doesn't blame them; he cries, too, when Father yells at him.

One day, a young woman enters the palace seeking audience with the king, and she throws herself at his feet and begs for her husband to come home, for the war to end, for her family to be fed and taken care of, but Chrom's father tells the guard to carry her out of the audience chamber, for the Exalt of Ylisse has no time for the trifling drivel of those lower than he and where is his lunch? He must plan the next crusade on the Plegian barbarians.

Chrom doesn't know why Father is so mean and he doesn't know why that lady was crying so much, but he does know that he is suddenly very sad and very scared.

Chrom is young, but he already knows that whenever he feels like this, he need only go to Big Sis Emm and she will give him a big hug and he won't feel sad or scared anymore.

* * *

When Lissa is born and Emmeryn takes her in her arms for the first time, the future Exalt of Ylisse cries.

Lissa is so beautiful, so innocent, and so untouched by the world around her that Emmeryn's heart physically _hurts_.

* * *

Emmeryn hears the sound of someone crying. It sounds like the cries of someone whose heart is broken. Emmeryn is not even a decade old, but she has heard this cry many times already.

It's one of the maids. Her back is turned toward the door as she sobs into her hands. She is huddled into a corner. "My brother… My brother…" the maid sobs.

Emmeryn thinks of her own brother. She thinks of his sloppy grin and boyish charm, of his silky blue hair and cheerful disposition. Her heart aches for this lonely woman because she knows that it is her family that is the cause of these tears. She steps forward. She holds out her arms and says in the most soothing voice she can muster, "Are you okay?"

When the maid whirls around and sees Emmeryn, her expression changes from utter despair to outright fury. She pushes the young girl's arms away, not caring that she is in the presence of the princess of Ylisse. "_It's all your damn father's fault!"_ she screams into her face. She spits on her, then runs away.

Emmeryn stays there, kneeling on the ground, the maid's contempt on her cheek. She doesn't bother wiping it away.

* * *

Big Sis Emm tells Chrom that because he's the boy, he has to take care of Lissa even though Lissa is a crybaby and Chrom hates her. And, anyway, why doesn't her Nana take care of her instead?

Emm gives him the look that says Chrom did something really bad. "Lissa needs you! Who else can love her like a big brother?"

Chrom hangs his head and glances at his baby sister. She looks up at him with wide, curious eyes. Chrom tentatively touches her hand and she grabs onto his finger with all the force her little grip can manage. Chrom tries to gently pry his finger away, but Lissa won't have it.

"Hey! Let go of me, Lissa! I need my finger, you know!" He pouts at her.

Lissa looks at the face Chrom makes, then bursts into a wide grin and a tiny giggle. Immediately, Chrom's expression completely changes and his whole face lights up.

"Emm, look! Lissa's laughing!" he says and Emm stares at Lissa next to him.

"You're right! Look how cute she is!"

Chrom doesn't know if she looks cute or not because cute is for girls, but he does know that when Lissa gives him that big, huge grin of hers, Chrom's chest swells with pride and the blue-haired little prince declares with all the confidence in the world,

"I'm gonna be the best big brother ever, Lissa! You'll see!"

* * *

Emmeryn is sad again today. She tried, again, to convince her father of ending the war, but he won't have it. "Those Plegian barbarians deserve what's coming" he said and Emmeryn knows she won't win, but that doesn't stop her from trying.

She sits in the palace gardens and breathes in the fresh air and wonders when this air will no longer by polluted by the blood of her fellow countrymen.

Chrom comes bounding up to her and hands her a flower. "Don't be sad, Emm!"

Emmeryn's face completely lights up as she takes the little flower in her hands and she looks at the smiling boy in front of her and words cannot express how much she loves him.

* * *

Father is angry again. Chrom knows this because he saw the maid run out of Father's room, crying. He freezes outside of his father's chambers, wondering what happened when all of a sudden, the door opens and Father comes waltzing out in his big robes. Father looks down at him and his eyes narrow.

"What are you doing here, boy?" His voice is poisonous and drips with enmity. "Go play somewhere else!" and Father walks away. Underneath his breath he says, "Imbecile."

Chrom doesn't know what "imbecile" means, but he immediately runs to Emm's room.

"Emm!" Chrom cries and he throws himself into his big sister's arms and she doesn't question, doesn't pry, just holds him and whispers words of comfort in his ears as he shakes and trembles in her embrace.

Even though Chrom is upset, he knows it's okay now because Emm is here. Emm is always here.

* * *

Lissa still smiles and laughs like a big idiot. She can't sit up on her own, but she's fun to play with. Chrom often laughs at her because she's so silly sometimes. One time, she picked up a toy and put it in her mouth even though she's not supposed to eat it. Chrom laughed a lot at that, but Emm got real worried.

Chrom likes playing with Lissa; he's already decided that she's gonna be the best little sister ever.

* * *

One day, Father dies and Chrom isn't sad. Neither is Emm, but everyone's making a big deal out of it. There's all these boring events and Father is in a box. Chrom doesn't really understand what's going on, but he does understand that Father was mean and now he won't come back anymore.

What he is sad about is that ever since that weird event where the grown-ups put Father in a box, he can't see Big Sis Emm much anymore. And sometimes he finds her in her room, crying. Chrom does the best he can, but he doesn't think he can hug like Emm can. Emm's hugs are special, after all.

* * *

Chrom doesn't sleep in his own room anymore. He sleeps with Emm now. Some of his friends tease him for it, but Chrom doesn't care. Emm comes home crying almost every day now and sometimes she's dirty and sometimes she's bleeding. All the grown-ups are so mean to her except a few.

One night, when Emm wraps her arms around Chrom and the soft moonlight illuminates the room through a tiny sliver between the curtains, Emm softly whispers in Chrom's ears, "Everyone in the country is hurting so much." She holds him a little tighter. "I'm going to end the war. I'm going to heal everyone."

The little prince doesn't quite understand, but he knows that if Emm says it, then it must be true.

"You can do it." Chrom never doubts it.

* * *

On the days when Big Sis Emm is sad, Lissa cries a lot. This is why Chrom hates these days the most.

* * *

Everyone tells him that it's dangerous to go outside the palace walls, even with a legion of big, strong men to protect them, but Emm goes out anyway. Chrom is jealous because he wants to go out, too, but she always tells him no. She is about to board the carriage, but then she stares at the large cavalry of soldiers accompanying her.

But Emm is frowning and chewing her lip and Chrom knows that's a bad sign.

"Emm?" he asks, concerned.

She ignores him. She runs toward the soldiers. "Please, leave!" She tells them. "We can't go out like this!"

The hierarch, who always accompanies Emm no matter where she goes, grabs ahold of her arm, "Exalt Emmeryn! What in the _world _are you doing?"

She shakes him off. "I'm telling the soldiers to leave." She turns back to her subjects. "Please leave. There is no need for all of you to be here."

The hierarch is persistent. "With all due respect, Your Highness, but it's far too dangerous to leave the palace without all these soldiers!"

The captain of the guard slides off his horse to kneel before Emmeryn. Chrom notices that his big sister is near tears. "I would agree with the hierarch, Your Majesty," the captain says gently. "It's far too dangerous to go alone."

But Emm stands her ground and shakes her head furiously, her tears like crystals as they glide down her smooth cheeks. "I don't want you to come with me." Her voice is shaky. "I won't be able to help anyone if I'm surrounded by all these weapons…"

She's trying not to cry, Chrom can tell, so he stands next to her and slips his hand in hers. She grips it so hard that it kind of hurts, but Chrom doesn't complain. He knows that Emm is hurting more than he is.

* * *

The first rock comes as a shock and hits Emmeryn square on her right shoulder. She yells in alarm and recoils from the pain, clutching onto her shoulder. The second rock comes soon after that. Then, the third, fourth, fifth hit her and soon the skies are filled with the angered sounds of suffering citizens and she has to run away while the guards try to control the situation. When she is finally in a safe place, she trembles and quakes and tries her best not to cry.

* * *

Emm comes home one day with the saddest expression on her face that Chrom has ever seen and the little prince decides that he hates that expression. But Lissa starts crying in the next room over and doesn't stop for a very long time.

Chrom doesn't like leaving Emm's side, not when his big sister looks so despondent, but Lissa needs him right now so he goes to her cradle. The perplexed nursemaid tries to shoo him away but Chrom doesn't budge. He reaches through the cradle's bars and puts his finger inside Lissa's chubby palm. Just like she always does, she grips it and cries, cries, cries.

"Lissa, don't cry," Chrom says softly, like he's heard the nursemaids talk. "Emm doesn't like it when you cry and, right now, Emm's really sad so you have to smile, okay?"

His baby sister keeps crying and Chrom tries hard not to cry, too. But Emm told him that big boys don't cry, so he holds it in and strokes Lissa's messy hair until she finally quiets and falls asleep.

In the next room, Chrom can hear Big Sis Emm's soft sobs.

* * *

Chrom is with Emmeryn inside the audience chamber. He's showing her a cool bug he found while out in the gardens and she is giggling at his story as she sits upon the throne, and for moment Chrom forgets that she is the Exalt of Ylisse. Instead, she is simply Emm, his beloved elder sister. But the hall's doors swing open and the feeling is swept away in a flood of reality. A messenger comes in, bows to Emm, and announces the citizen who seeks audience with Her Majesty. Emm's demeanor completely changes: her gentle smile is wiped from her face and she is upright and tense upon a throne that is much too big for her body. Chrom is quickly escorted away from Emm's side.

Once Chrom is safely out of the room, she says, "Please bring him in." Emm's voice is hard and full of authority.

The man is in rugged clothing and there is dirt practically everywhere on his body. But Emmeryn doesn't pay much attention to the man's garb, but is instead transfixed on the man's _face_. The moment his gaze falls on her, it contorts into a look of pure rage and he spits at Emmeryn's feet.

Everyone in the room jumps to their feet. Emm simply sits there, rigid on her throne, eyes as wide as the galaxy as one of her citizens stareherdown. The guards jump into action and immediately start dragging him away from the young girl on the throne. The hierarch steps forward indignantly. "How dare yo—"

"BRING MY SON BACK!" the man screams at her as he struggles against the guards' grips. Tears stream unseemly down his cheeks and he fights and struggles and screams all the way down the hall. "IT'S BEEN FIVE YEARS! I WANT HIM BACK!"

Emmeryn sits there upon her throne, unmoving, lip trembling; unshed tears in her wide, wide eyes. The man's screams echo in her ears long after he is gone.

* * *

Emm likes to hold Lissa in her arms. Whenever she does so, she is reminded that there is something worth fighting for in this world, something worth going out everyday, risking her life to attain.

She resolves, once again, to heal her people and end the war with Plegia.

* * *

Chrom learns two things during Emm's first year as Queen: how to hug and how to make Lissa laugh, even when he feels like crying.

* * *

Chrom finally saw it. The reason why Emm comes home bloody and beaten. The rocks flying in the air, hitting themselves against his sister is enough to give him nightmares for weeks on end.

* * *

Chrom tells her not to go; she'll get hurt again. He throws his arms around her waist and screams for her not to go. But she simply removes his arms, crouches in front of him and smiles that weird smile so full of pain and despair and love and says, "I know you don't want me to go, but I _must _go. Even if they hate me, I am their ruler, and I still love them." He can see the bruise on her face and the cut on her lip and even though he fights his hardest against it, a few tears still manage to escape his eyes.

She gives Chrom a kiss on his forehead and the biggest hug she's ever given. But she lets go too soon, gives him one last smile, and enters the carriage. She rides into town, where the spiteful gazes of citizens who hate her await.

* * *

Emm doesn't give up. Ever. Because she has a younger brother and sister at home and a suffering country abroad and she won't stop until every heart has been healed from the sins of her father. Including her own.

* * *

The days are full of sadness. Emm comes home almost everyday either bloody or bruised, and sometimes, she holds Chrom in her arms or cradles Lissa in her lap and cries softly into their hair. Chrom hates those days the most.

But one day, Emm bursts through the door, happy as a lark and grinning like Lissa does when Chrom makes faces. She picks their baby sister up from where she and Chrom were playing and hugs her brother close to her chest and laughs and laughs and laughs.

"I did it, Chrom! I did it! I ended the war!"

Chrom simply laughs and claps alongside his sister. Emm is smiling again. That's reason enough to celebrate.

* * *

People still hate her. Chrom knows this because Emm's smile is as rare as ever.

People hate Chrom, too, but Emm tries her best to hide it. Chrom may be barely five years old, but even he understands what a glare is.

* * *

Lissa crawls around now. She even knows a few words. Her favorite word is "Happy."

Whenever Chrom or Emmeryn enters a room she happens to be in, she claps her hands and grins, screeching to the world, "Happy! Happy!"

And when Chrom sees the smiling face of his baby sister, he can't help but forget for a moment the darkness of the world outside and the pain weighing in their elder sister's heart. After all, Lissa is _smiling _so this must mean that everything is right in the world.

* * *

She still goes out everyday to her people even though everyone tells her not to. It's far too dangerous; she even has the scars to prove it.

But all Emmeryn has to do is think of Chrom and Lissa and she will lift her head, stare them straight in the eyes and declare, "I will do this."

She never wavers.

* * *

Even though Emm is gone a lot, she could never forget her darling siblings waiting for her at home everyday. So, she tries her best to make time for them as often as possible.

Because when they are all together, with Lissa making her goofy faces and Chrom laughing at Lissa, Emm knows that _this _is where she belongs.

* * *

Lissa runs up to Chrom and Emm and screeches her signature word: "Happy! Happy!" and she giggles and grins like she has the whole wide world in her hands. Chrom thinks she just might because Emm is grinning and Lissa is laughing and there is no greater happiness than when Chrom's two sisters are smiling.


End file.
